Odd this day
Ah, yes — 376th anniversary of the demise of Charles I, who, as you may remember if you know your Python, I “was 5 foot 6 inches tall at the start of his reign, but only 4 foot 8 inches tall at the end of it”.
You may also be aware that there’s a statue of him at Trafalgar Square…
…but did you know that one of the best facts about him, and about the separation of his bonce from the rest of him, does not appear in their Oliver Cromwell song? It concerns John Rivett (or Rivet), a 17th century metalsmith, and royal taker of the piss.
The statue famously faces down Whitehall towards the site where he was rendered decisively shorter in 1649, but it wasn’t created in his memory, it was put up when he was alive (just not at Trafalgar Square).
During the Civil War, the Puritan authorities wanted Charlie melted down, so brazier John Rivet(t) bought it from them and showed them some bits of metal to prove he’d done what they asked. Then he started selling knives, thimbles and other oddments ‘made’ from the statue.
There weren’t many flies on Rivett, apparently — he sold some to Parliamentarians as mementoes of them having done in the king, and some to Royalists to remind them of the tragic martyr. So, you might think the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 would have caused him some difficulty.
It was at this point, however — just at the moment when newly emboldened royalists might have come knocking to say “oh, so you melted down the memorial to our noble monarch, did you?” — that either he revealed, or it was discovered, that he hadn’t melted it down at all. It had, in fact, been buried in his garden all this time.
The second Earl of Portland, whose father had commissioned the statue, claimed it. Rivet(t) said no, so Portland complained to the House of Lords who — not entirely surprisingly — sided with the Earl. Rivet(t) handed it over.
In 1675, Portland’s widow “sold it to Charles II for £1,600”, and it now stands near the site of the old Charing cross, which (having been put up in memory of a Catholic queen — Eleanor, 1241–90) had also not fared well in the Civil War.
It’s apparently London’s oldest bronze statue, and worth a look if you’re ever passing that way. Not for its artistic merit, though. French sculptor Hubert Le Sueur didn’t capture the man and his armour too badly, but…
…even his own mother wouldn’t claim he could do horses.
